Gender Roles in MMORPGs versus MUDs

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Anyone who's played an MMORPG has seen certain stereotypes in video games. The “tank” is a dude, the “healer” is a chick. It doesn't matter what gender the toons, or even the characters behind them, are. That's the stereotype most players start with and its clear the real world perceptions of gender roles bleed into what people automatically assume in gaming.

Studies have been done to investigate what motivates male gamers versus female gamers. One of the most common results found is that women prefer socialization and communal achievements, while men aim for competition and direct victory over opponents. Beyond that, evidence suggests that females will actually lose interest in games that lack interaction or engagement beyond just the gameplay and mechanics.

Perhaps this is why the “nurturer” roles like healers are often assumed to be feminine roles, while PvP is considered a male domain. In fact, in a study done on EverQuest II players, levels of aggression showed a distinct impact from who gamers played with: men actually demonstrated more aggression, and females less, when they gamed with significant others.

However, unlike MMOs, MUDs are far more encompassing of what one's “role” means and is defined by. PvP and PvE are not isolated scenarios divorced from the rest of the game itself, but are intrinsically intertwined with core gameplay. In Lusternia, for example, you might hunt creatures or quest to increase your city's power levels, or jump in and help fight at a revolt to increase your commune's influence in the world. Under Aetolia's Ylem system, cities group up for team combat every few hours to secure precious resources for their factions, and in Achaea you may find yourself called upon to defend your house's icon from attack.

Each of these situations listed yield all types of participants as the effects from victory are tangible rewards for both the individuals and the characters' organizations. Combat and PvE participation is both about competition and socialization. A player can fight for the sake of fighting and aim to crush their opponents; but they are just as likely to be driven to join in out of a desire to help make their organizations stronger.

But MUDs are not just about PvP and PvE. They are complex, with many other facets to the roles available. Players can design and craft clothing, jewelry and even alcoholic beverages, run shops as merchants, be a priest for an all-powerful god, or deftly manipulate political alliances as a government official. You'll find intrepid economists, shadowy spies, philosophers, scientists, artists, because the mechanics of MUDs tie all of these elements – roleplay, combat, PvE, PvP, politics, economy - together to weave who a character is.

However, even with this depth to character that MUDs offer, do gender roles still echo through? In Aetolia, for example, there is a guild called the Druids which is focused on a defensive, supporting role, with the ideals based around protecting nature and communicating with plantlife. Membership in this guild has shown a far larger proportion of female characters than male, with all of the current leadership being women. Is this the MUD equivalent of an MMO's “healer” role?

So, what do you think? Have MUDs found a magical balance in incentive and motivation, making things appealing to both genders, a goal MMORPGs are still struggling to reach? Or are things still largely defined around real world gender roles? Weigh in with your comments!

Eh, in Lusternia, we have a lot of female characters in my warrior guild who have held important leadership positions. I don't really see any 'gender role' bias in this game, every guild has an even distribution of males and females who find attraction to those roles for many reasons. I think MUDs do achieve an amazingly good balance of male:female.

I haven't really seen any major imbalance in the leadership. Seems about 50/50 male/female.

I don't really get into PvP, so I don't know what the balance is like among Lusternian combatants.

Then there's the question of cross-gender RP. Is a woman more likely to play a male combatant so that they are taken seriously? Is a man more likely to play a female character in the hopes that other players (men?) will pay more attention to them, which leads to higher leadership positions?

Personally, I don't pay a lot of attention to other characters genders. Given the amount of times that Luenn has been refered to as female, it doesn't look like many other people do either.

I think that's really the difference between the text and graphics base which allows MUDs to feel much more varied when we let our imaginations create the images instead of having the screen show us similar versions of ourselves everywhere we look.

well in general there's simply more leadership roles in Lusternia, instead of a GM there's a Guild Master (more overall leadership and sits on the city council) and a GA Guild Administer (mostly in charge of guild advancement, novices and the like) and a guild champion (security can defend guildies).

There is a good gender balance in regards to combat. And by the way, I really hate those studies that people claim to make. I looked it up and there is no complete journal on the matter... which means they could have altered their results, who knows. There is no methodology stated either.

Yeah, I don't really trust most of these studies. But I also tend to hang out around gamers that break all of the stereotypes, so those stereotypes were never there for me to begin with.

Since I've started playing Lusternia, I've also noticed that there's a pretty good gender balance across the board. I've seen plenty of female PVPers and pleny of male characters doing healing or support rather than tanking.

I'm a female, I always play female characters. Usually, I'll play ranged DPS classes. For Lusternia, I'm playing a druid. This is my usual class pick if I can't play something that wields a bow. I also tend to lean towards pet classes.

There is bias, even in Lusternia, but having a bias does not mean there's a bar. So woemen are not barred from certain roles in Lusternia, nor for that matter are men, but there are some bars where given an otherwise even abilities a man or women tends to be favored over there counterpart.

The trend does seem to be women, or those who generally tend to protect things (like Wardens). This is in Cyrene, at least. This especially goes for House Leaders, I think 3/4 of our Houses are run by women. Which is frankly very refreshing.

The girls are more competetive with each other then the guys when playing D&D. Our most recent warhammer board game, we had to 'browbeat' one the girls into becoming an Inquisitor. She needed a vote from everyone before even was considered...and ALOT of favors((two beatings)) later, she did!

While not same as a mud when round the table with friends, its kind of a 'black sheep' in the room situation. There is just as many guys and girls seeking similar, but definately unique roles of their own, it makes sense why boredom comes from repetition.

This. Although I feel that in both MMOs and MUDs the stereotype of "ladies play healers" rings true, for both RL and character gender. However, I've found that in MUDs people are far less likely to pick a gender based on 'looks'. Although there are of course very well known exceptions with some pretty typical descriptions....

I think the same thing. It's hard to answer the question posed without doing so.

I suspect there would be a 'spillover' of your own personality into the character, regardless of whether the gender is the same or not, so that might actually affect their propensity for PvP or lack thereof.

I have female friends who play male characters either because they don't want the "special attention" or they feel this will be thought of as stereotype "guy plays girl" which is worse than being thought of as a guy playing a male character.

Ah, there it is. Some of the attention is nice, some of it isn't. I've probably told about ten people that I'm not looking for any kind of romantic relationship. I haven't really been paying attention to the gender ratio, but both genders have been turned down. Arguably, at least some of these people might have not been actually hitting on me, but I still felt like I would be leading them on if I let them keep acting the way they were.

I am definitely more competitive in MUDs than I am in MMOs. I think part of it has to do with ego and identity. In an MMO or a FPS it's a lot more anonymous, so I don't really care what people think, but in MUDs where your player is known in the community, there is a lot more competition to save face and preserve your identity/reputation.

I am Bill Nighy, and from a real world perspective, one would be surprised at how many females there are in leadership positions in Aetolia (at least that's where my opinion is coming from). It's a good thing, overall.

I would argue, though, that leadership roles fit the "gaming style" studies of male/female gamers, though. Leadership is a community-oriented goal, so that is something females would be more likely to pursue.

I am one of the few women who prefer less of the socialization... maybe because socialization became too much for me... I have had to eventually be straight forward with men so they can get the point quickly and leave me alone.

I think this is bullshit. I am a woman who plays primarily male characters, and am very combat oriented. In fact, I'm usually one of the least social people in the games I play. The women I play are definitely not "pretty" either.

I think there was more gender-bias in MMOs because there were simply less women gamers. Today, not so much. I think MUDs appeal more to me than MMOs simply because of the fast in-and-out philosophy and the ability to roleplay - rather than because I feel pidgeon-holed into healing in an MMO.

The fact that I have an 85 Priest on WoW is neither here nor there! (Although nowadays its a Shadow Priest - melting faces for the win!)

This is the questions I asked myself when I noticed a lots of girls where joining the House. And I still feel like there are more of them around. BUT I've seen a good ( PvP-PvE / Girls - Boys ) balance, so that might be just an impression.

I have come to find out that there seems to be a good mix of male/female combatants in Achaea. This also means that there is a good mix of noncombatants too. Now if the characters are male or female doesn't have to represent their real world gender nor should it.

I don't believe in "gender roles" and think it's silly to still think of it in this day and age. I think male/female players play characters (be them male or female characters) they want in despite of any stereotypes that still exist, so i think it's balanced. I'm sure there are many female players that play fierce male or female combatants as there are males who play great female or male healers and vice versa .

I like the upcoming idea for the female in Borderlands 2, she gets a skill which lets her hold the enemy still in a bubble. I assume this concept came from the developers agreeing that chicks can't aim in games :D

Some say the only difference between men and women is plumbing. I think this is absurd myself. Gender does make a difference and most people do look at it , whether or not they will admit to it. no self respecting man wants to be beaten up by a girl.

It's definitely true in Achaea that more guys are into combat and more women are into the nurturing roles, on average.

But obviously there are exceptions. I think the fact that it's a text game, so you can't see the other person and be influenced by physical appearance or sound of voice and things, probably helps to tamp down the natural effects of gender stereotyping a little, and to make it easier for everyone to play whatever role they want.

At least in the parties defending Nature, there seems to be a pretty good mix of individuals. I occasionally notice a pronoun as someone is Staffcasting or Choking an exterminator, but for the most part, it's irrelevant. (Not to mention being lost in combat spam.)

[LongRamble]I can't say that I've ever really seen anyone reprimanded for acting outside the stereotype of gender and I've always had a blast playing against them. My achaean main, for a while, was a flamboyent mhun that ran around in a feather trimmed tiger-print velvet frock coat and claimed that life was 'fabulous'. Now I play a female that lacks pretty much all maternal instinct, has absolutely no curves to speak of, and considers wrought iron to the most precious of metals.

This is not to say that you don't see the females that feel more at home in chiffon and gemstones or the men that beat their platemail-covered chests...they just aren't as common which is kind of amazing. It feels like people are less playing character types and more playing -people- with all the quirks and issues that come with them.

I will, however, agree regardless of what I end up playing..would not be played for very if there was less socializing involved in any game. Pure statistics and numbers, while exciting, do not make for a great waste of time. [/LongRamble]

I haven't witnessed any obvious gender roles in the muds I've played, except for when females are less likely to concentrate on combat in some muds. There are several females in political and guild administrative roles, and a pretty good ratio of females to males in the guilds.

i think the separation of char and player makes it more difficult for sexism to come into a MUD. I don't think I can recall anytime whether in combat or politics that someone was overlooked or slighted because of their char's gender.

I don't really play any other games... But I play Aetolia (and before than Achaea). I find the MUDs of IRE more engaging and interesting, so I suppose as a girl I have to agree with the article in so much as MUDs bring things to gaming that other types of games tend to fall flat on (at least for me).

I've read a study once where analysis of written text could define the gender of the writer, based on the words used and how often they appear in the text. Feminine keywords would be "with", "if", "should", "me" and masculine keywords "around", "what", "more" and "is". I guess you could use this analysis to check whether a character is played by a male or female player.

When talking about foul language, I have experienced that more from male characters in Achaea than female. Is this because males are more verbally aggressive or more extrovert when frustrated?

true you never know if the gender a char is is the gender behind the char. so any data might be skued. though it'd be intresting to find out how many play the oposet ender of themselves. I think it'd be an intresting way to rp but, difficult too maybe. still intresting.

My first character was male, I sort of figured learning an entirely new game was going to be hard enough, without having to fend off text advances as well. I played him for a fair amount of time before retiring and then Lianca was born. I knew what to expect from the world with her so it was easier to deal with it all.

With MUDs being more forceably RP intensive, I think the player base that's attracted is quite different from the MMORP crowd. Even this small amount of forced intimacy can greatly affect how people will act.

I can agree that the forced in-character style that IRE takes greatly impacts how many people stay, I think it's also true that females still tend to gravitate toward 'feminine' professions in these games. I see more female alchemists, sylvans, druids, priests -- anything that could take the role of 'passive' over 'combative' tends to be more female dominated than roles like Knights. That's not to say there aren't female Knights. There are. They just aren't as numerous, or they have roles like 'Novice Head', which deals with the new incoming individuals.

There are rare exceptions of females who really go above and beyond to bust out of the stereotype, but maybe they prefer these roles because they're more RP intensive than the warrior who crushes skulls.

(Nafi's sexist regarding women -- she hates them and thinks they should stay in the proverbial kitchen.)

Me on these gender roles are looks like a duck, quacks like one, guess what they are one. Thats why I never ask about ooc stuff. Plus if you are looking for a partner inrl on a game. Ill leave that to whoever is the characters players as I try to keep ooc confidential to a degree.

Ferrous isn't so great at PvP anymore (used to be reasonable but is really rusty now) - but get me on a PC-based FPS, and I kick ass. When my family/friends LAN - my sister and I always get the top scores, and if we're on the same team... well... good luck to the rest of you, but don't expect to go far! I think some girls (like me) get tired of the "girls suck at computer games" attitude, and go out to prove we can be much better than the boys. =D

in lusternia there are women chars that can kick ass and take names when they want. some that come to mind is kelly and malicia to mention the 2 I'm most fermilar with . another is celina though I might not have spelled her name right. I'm sure there are others. talin. others. azula. there are male healers that are good too. but, I can't think of one in resent times. I don't really think those gender roles that are assumed in real life really hold here of women being nurchurors and men being all agressive and combatents really hold here.